Felittle was blinking rapidly, her carmine lips parted in the way that always made Red want to slide his head between them, to look into the cavern of her mouth. Of course, his head was too big for that, but still, he longed to try. “One man? But … no woman wants just one man! No matter how much he pays! Where’s the … the … variety? One man!” She yelped a laugh at her companion and punched him on the shoulder.
Such gestures were appallingly useless, with the nails folded in like that. Far better, Red knew, if those short claws lashed out, slicing that shoulder to ribbons. There was no doubt in the lizard cat’s mind that she needed proper protection, the kind of protection that Red could give. He rose slowly, affecting indifference, and lazily stretched out his back.
But the man noticed and his eyes narrowed. “Your damned cat’s getting ready again. I swear, Felittle, when we go it’s not coming with us. If it attacks me again, I’ll punch it again, hard as I can.”
“Oh, you’re cruel!” cried Felittle, jumping from the bed and hurrying over to take Red into her arms. Over her shoulder, the lizard cat met the man’s eyes and something passed between them that both instinctively understood.
By the time the flying scales and bits of flesh settled, one of them would stand triumphant. One of them, and only one, would possess this soft creature with the wide eyes. Red snuggled tighter and stretched open his mouth in a yawn, showing his rival his fangs. See them, man-named-Slipgit?
The display stole all colour from the man’s face and he quickly looked away.
She snuggled Red closer. “My baby, ooh, my baby, it’s all right. I won’t let the big man hurt you again. I promise.”
“It can’t come with us,” the man said.
“Of course he will!”
“Then you’d better forget about having lots of men in your room, Felittle. Unless you want them all sliced up and enraged and liable to take it out on the both of you.”
Cooing, she slipped her hand to the back of Red’s round head and held him so that she could peer into his face, only whiskers apart. “You’ll get used to them, won’t you, sweetie?”
Used to them? Yes. Used to killing them. Bellows, shrieks, screams about the eyes and then gurgles. But this elaborate and detailed answer came out as a low purr and a snuffle. Red exposed his claws and batted one paw in the man’s direction.
At that he grunted and stood. “The problem with lizard cats,” he said, “is that they kill the furry kind. Angry neighbours are never good, Felittle. In Erin, why, someone will strangle this thing before the first week’s out.”
“Oh, you’re horrible! Not my Red!”
“If you want him to live for, er, however many years lizard cats live, you should leave him here. That’s the best way of showing your love for Red.”
No, the best way is tying you up and leaving you on the floor while she goes down for supper. I don’t need long.
“Then maybe I won’t go! Oh, Red, I so love your purring.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, I don’t know anymore! I’m confused!”
During this, Red had been gathering his limbs under him, moving slowly up onto her shoulder. Without warning, he launched himself at the man’s face.
A fist collided with Red’s nose, and then he was flying sideways, into the wall. Stunned, he fell to the floor beside the dresser. Something buzzed in his skull and he tasted blood. As if from a great distance, Red heard the man say, “You know, if that thing had any brains to speak of, it would try something different for a change.”
Red felt hands slip under him and then he was lifted into the air, back into her arms. “Oh, you poor thing! Was Slippy mean to you again? Oh, he’s so mean, isn’t he?”
Something different? Now there’s an idea. I need to remember this. I need to … oh, she’s so soft, isn’t she? Soft here, and soft here, too, and …
Whuffine Gaggs hummed under his breath as he pulled the silver ring from the severed finger and then tossed the finger into the spume-laden surf. It rolled back onto the sands with the next wave, as if trying to make a point, and then joined the others, jostling like sausages in a mostly even row above the fringe. A brief glance at them made his stomach rumble. Sighing, he squinted at the ring, which was thin but bore runic sigils running all the way round its surface. He saw the mark of the Elder God of the Seas, Mael, but little good that prayer had done the poor fool. Glancing down at the now-naked corpse at his feet, he studied her fleshy form for a moment longer, before shaking himself and with a muttered curse turned away.
A sharp grating sound made him look up to see a battered boat grounding prow-first against the wrack twenty paces up the beach. It looked abandoned, its oar-locks empty and the gunnels mostly chewed away, as if subject to frenzied jaws. Waves thumped into its stern, foamed over its square splashboard.
Grunting, Whuffine made his way over. As he drew near, cavalry boots crunching smartly in the sand with the jab of the walking stick making sweet punching sounds, he saw a man’s head rise into view, and then a bandaged hand lifted in a frail wave. The face was deathly pale, except where a burn had taken away half the beard. Rimed in salt, the man could have crawled out from a pickling barrel.
“Ho there!” cried Whuffine, quickly pocketing the ring as he hurried closer. “Another survivor, thank Mael!” His free hand slipped beneath the sheepskins and deftly palmed the knife.
Red-rimmed eyes fixed on him, and then the man straightened. A short sword was belted to his waist, and he now settled a hand on it. “Back off, wrecker!” he said in a snarl, using the sea-trader’s cant. “I ain’t in the mood!”
Whuffine halted. “You look done in, sir! That’s my shack up on the trail. Nice and warm, and I have food and drink.”
“Do you now?” The man suddenly smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. He looked down and seemed to nudge something with one foot. “Up, my love, we found us a friend.”
A dark-skinned, mostly naked woman rose into view. Her left breast, brazenly exposed to the chill wintry air, was white as snow, but this absence of hue was uneven, its edges like splashes of paint. The look she settled upon Whuffine was full of suspicion. Moments later a third figure stirred upright in the boat. Blood-stained bandages covered most of his face, leaving only one eye clear, along with the lower jaw. “Thath’s a wrecker all right,” this man said, pausing to split and then lick his lips with a forked tongue. “I bet thath thack of hith ith a damned gallery of murder and worth, and crowded with loot bethideth.”
“Just my point, Gust,” said the first man. “We could do with some new gear, and stuff to sell, too.” He then clambered over the side and stood on the sand. “Brisk, ain’t it?” he asked Whuffine. “But it ain’t no Stratem winter, is it?” He then drew his sword. “Put the knife away, fool, and lead us up to the shack.”
Whuffine eyed the weapon, noting the savage nicks along both edges. “I’m not going to take kindly to being robbed, and since the only town for leagues in any direction is just up the trail, where I have lots of friends, and where the Lord of the Keep is stickler about law and order, you’d be making a terrible mistake doing me harm, or cleaning me out.”
The one-eyed man loosed a laugh verging on hysteria. “Lithen to him, Heck, he’th threatening uth! Hah hah hah! Ooh, I’m thcared! Hah hah!”
“Stop that, Gust,” snapped the woman. “The point is, we gotta get going. Those Chanters ain’t all dead, you know, and I bet they’ll want their lifeboat back-”
“Too late!” shrieked the man named Gust.
“They went down, Birds,” said Heck. “They must’ve! There was fire and screamin’ dead men and demons and Korbal Broach and the sharks-gods the sharks! All with Mael’s own storm crashing down on us! Nobody survived that!”
“We did,” Birds reminded him.
Heck licked his lips, and then shook himself. “It don’t matter, love.” He rubbed at his face, wincing when his fingers touched the weal of the burn. “Let’s go and get warm. We can plan over a meal and a keg of ale. The point is, we’re on dry land again, and I don’t mean to ever go back to sea. You, wrecker, where in Hood’s name are we?”